Printed products which consist of a plurality of folded sheets are normally produced from an intermediate product or from a plurality of product parts, wherein the intermediate product or the product parts each consist of a plurality of sheets loosely folded inside each other. This kind of product part (tabloids) is e.g. produced by cutting a printed paper web lengthwise into a plurality of part-webs, by guiding the part-webs over each other and by cutting the superimposed part-webs transversely and folding the cut stacks of superimposed sheets substantially centrally between the cutting lines.
A finished product is produced from only one such intermediate product by connecting the sheets before or after cutting and before or after folding along the folding line e.g. with staples.
For producing finished products from a plurality of product parts as described above, the following methods are known:
The product parts are inserted inside each other ("from-outside-to-inside" method) or collected on top of each other ("from-inside-to-outside" method) and are stitched in their mutual folding line. PA0 The product parts are inserted as above or collected or are stacked by collating in a folded state, the spine area then being milled off at least partly and the sheets being glued together in the milled areas. PA0 The product parts are stitched individually, then collated and glued together in the spine area or connected by other means.
In all known methods, covers or cover sheets and/or spine covers can be applied to the collected product parts in varying manners.